Napheesa Collier

He was like one of those coaches, exactly like Gina, like a yeller, really tough, expects a lot from you.

And so when you're with coaches like that, they never let your head get too big.

You know, they're always pushing you to be better.

And he did.

And so it wasn't like I went in there thinking, you know, I'm the best player in the world.

I would say when I got to Minnesota probably.

I mean, I tried in college a little bit, but I was just, I'm not a big, like vocally I was not a leader.

I think I was, I tried to lead by example, like I always try to be the hardest worker and show that way, but I was really uncomfortable with like confrontation, so holding

people accountable, you have to be confrontational.

And so I feel like I started building the vocal side of it more when I was in Minnesota, because again, Sylvia Fowles was my vet and her and our coach knew she's retiring soon.

So they kind of like set me up for that a couple of years before that happened, like saying, you know, you're going to be in this leadership role.

We need you to start working on this, this and this.

And so just like the first step of whatever is admitting you have a problem, like just acknowledging in those situations

that okay this is something this is somewhere i can grow like this is somewhere where i can say something and just naturally i got more and more confident in that have you gotten good at confrontation i wouldn't say good it's something like i it's not natural to me so it's something i'm will always have to work on but i'm definitely way better than i used to be but how do you like how do you process it in terms of awareness because now you're you're not emotionally getting into a fight with a teammate you're purposefully getting into a fight with a teammate correct

Yeah, well, I think still like that is not my confrontation style.

Like the word is confrontational, but I'm not confrontational about it.

I try to come with it from like a point of reason.

So see why you're thinking that way and try to like meet you where you're at.

So I try to talk through in that way.

Yeah.